By Jason and Alisha Hagey
Repertory Dance Theatre’s (RDT) Link Series presents Superwomen, an evening of dance by Rachel Barker with guest artists Alexandra Bradshaw-Yerby and Liz Dibble in the Leona Wagner Black Box in Salt Lake City, Utah, tells us that dance can encapsulate more than movement. In this instance, dance is communication, relationships, and experiences. Superwomen daringly explores the nuance of connection; to loved ones, to friends, online, to our very Earth, and with ourselves.
The first performance of the night begins with words and no music. McCall McClellan (Dancer) shares with us a memory about her grandmother. From that story an abstract expression winds and swerves as McClellan and Céline David (Dancer) try to connect. The whole number deals with tension and release and so as the story unravels, the dancers have varying degrees of successful connection. The text mixed with the movement really taps into loss and longing. Thus, Superwomen’s opening number sets the tone for the evening: though beautiful, the dance is also meant to make us think about the modern world and our place in it.
Rachel Barker (Director/Choreographer) said (and I am paraphrasing here), “when watching modern dance, the spectator is the authority. It isn’t always about the choreographer’s intent, but how we view it and respond to it that gives this form inherent value.” Dance (especially contemporary dance) is often a bit elusive to those who haven’t studied it. Art is a subjective experience and Barker gives us the freedom to respond individually and for each member of the audience to have authority on how they interpret the movement. Superwomen becomes liberating from the opening statement. And Barker’s team of collaborators gives plenty to interpret.
Where “McCall and Céline” bares the human need to connect but the difficulty in doing so, “Zero Sum Game” is Liz Dibble’s (Guest Artist/Choreographer) conversation on confrontation. Repeatedly arguing through movement, two dancers duel to Jacob Malasky’s “How to Win an Argument.” The piece is mesmerizing. “Zero Sum Game” beautifully encapsulates the spoken text, flowing from moment to moment through evocative whole-body gestures and compelling altercation. Hannah Hardy and Brady Swanson (Dancers) personify perfection in this meditation on what it means to win or lose.
In a provocative production, the award-winning dance film, “Sedimented Here,” is perhaps the most contradictory and conclusive treatise on our mediated existence. The landscape is gorgeous, the rock, sand, and water are visceral, and the sounds are naturalistic. The movement belonging to each space puts the dancers in places where they inhabit more primal positions. The colors of their costuming imitate the orange and gold landscape. It appears that nothing could be more instinctive, but the medium itself interrupts all that is organic. The edits, the sweeping panoramas mixed with intense close-ups, creates an artificial dance through the film. Thus, the film dances and the dancers dance, yet all this native beauty is incongruent with the method and medium in which it is captured. This is part of the brilliance of “Sedimented Here.” Much like the first two pieces, “Sedimented Here” portrays to us the most normal, natural things but also points up to how difficult it is to be normal and natural – to be authentic.
Continuing in this theme of contradictions, “Phoenix,” by its very name, gives a sense of rising, overcoming, and becoming new. Indeed, the dance exemplifies the desire to struggle against all opposition, to emerge victorious. This is in immediate contrast to the music, Wolfgang Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor, Lacrimosa – a mass in celebration of death. In fact, Mozart died while writing this piece. Lacrimosa is Latin for tearful, and the text of the composition reflects hope. “Phoenix” is a powerful, transcendent performance elevating the yearning of the soul to someday be found worthy despite the harshness of living.
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In the end, “Kaleidoscope” encapsulates the rest of the program with a moving, twelve dancer number that is all about our digital age. We go to social media to connect, to find those like ourselves, to be supported. Ofttimes, our time spent on the internet, through mediated contact, becomes an exercise in isolation. The dancers come together, then leave one or two behind. One dancer will stand at the top of a pedestal only to be knocked off to make way for someone else to take the spotlight. They come together to support, to love, and to uplift – there are trust falls throughout. Sound familiar? Facebook can be just like this performance.
“As guest artist [Alexandra] Bradshaw-Yerby (formerly of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company) asserts, ‘there is no such thing as a superwoman— only superwomen.’ SUPERWOMEN illuminates the journey to embrace our whole selves, in all of our vulnerable and inimitable glory.” This truly hearkens back to the overall theme that we, as viewers, see flowing between numbers. Superwomen boldly looks at connections and missed connections, and our digital relationships (at least, that is what I see). The entire text of verbal, physical, musical, filmic, and dance movement represents our inability to be fully present, completely authentic, and wholly alive. Superwomen asks us to confront the paradox of life getting in the way while equally exposing us to exactly who we are. Fun and contemplative, Superwomen is an evening of expression not to be missed.
RDT’s Link Series presents Superwomen, by Rachel Barker with Guest Artists Alexandra Bradshaw-Yerby and Liz Dibble
Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 Broadway, Salt Lake City, UT 84101 in the Leona Wagner Black Box
March 31 – April 2nd, 2022, at 7:30 PM
Tickets: $15-$22
Rose Wagner Venue Link
Arttix
RDTUtah
*There will be a Q&A session after the Friday night show
Jason and Alisha, thank you very much for this thoughtful review of the show, it encapsulates many of the things that I felt about the show as well. It is common to come out of a contemporary dance concert having been challenged, and I welcome that for sure. But it is more rare to be both challenged and inspired towards deeper introspection and compassionate outreach. I am grateful for each of these fantastic choreographers sharing their experiences, and I’m grateful for you augmenting their voice. Thank you!